Adams County board moves forward on ballpark upgrades

NATCHEZ, Miss. (Sept. 20) – Adams County supervisors gave the go-ahead today to start planning upgrades for the Chester Willis baseball venue and nearby softball field.

With costs estimated as high has $2 million, the county board envisions borrowing money through a bond issue for this.

Supervisors voted to get its engineers to survey the ballpark property on Liberty Road by Seargent Prentiss Drive and Natchez High School. They met with Joey Furr, a Baton Rouge landscape architect who’s drawn up preliminary plans for Chester Willis Field. The aged baseball stadium and field are “substandard,” Furr said.

“It’s got the bones for a good facility, but there are some things we need to do … to make this a premier facility,” he told the Board of Supervisors.

While Furr has already drawn up a “preliminary master plan” done in 2019 at the request of the Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission, more details are needed before county supervisors give final approval.

Furr cited “ballpark numbers” in estimating the costs that could be below $1 million for minimal improvements or as high as $2 million if supervisors want to go for the “gold” plan.

The Liberty Park ballfield’s history goes as far back as 1940, when the minor league baseball team Natchez Pilgrims played there, according to baseball historical records. Teams went on to play there as the Natchez Giants and Natchez Indians until the early 1950s.

It’s been used in the past several decades by Natchez and Cathedral high schools.

Furr is a landscape architect whose Baton Rouge firm has planned and designed more than 50 parks and recreation facilities, including the Louisiana State University varsity softball field, LSU tennis facility and McComb sports complex, according information posted by his firm.

Adams County Supervisor Wes Middleton said he’s eager “to get the ball back rolling again” for Chester Willis Field’s renovation. He noted this comes in the midst of the recreation “break-up” between Adams County supervisors and the Natchez Board of Aldermen. They’ve dissolved their joint recreation program adopted in 2015. It failed to live up to expectations for enhancing Natchez-Adams County’s parks and recreation venues.

“Hopefully, we’ll get this thing headed in the right direction,” Middleton said of the county’s plans for the baseball and softball facilities.

The city-county’s consolidated effort did result in building the community swimming pool that opened in 2018 by the Liberty Park baseball stadium. As the city and county boards go their separate ways for recreation, they still plan to jointly fund and operate the pool.

Adams County supervisors have been seeking to meet with the Natchez mayor and aldermen to hash out plans for jointly funding the pool before the new budget year begins Oct. 1. “We are pushing for a meeting. … We’ve been asking for it and haven’t gotten it,” said Adams County board attorney Scott Slover.

He said it’s important to have the pool budget adopted by the city and county boards before the new fiscal year starts next week. Slover expressed concerns about a funding agreement not being made and, “all of a sudden, we’ve got a partner (the city) who won’t chip in their share the money.”

A budget of about $185,000 has been proposed for the swimming pool’s operations in the coming year, with the county and city equally dividing the costs.